“It’s time for high tea!”  She rang as she sat at the miniature table, over-sized hat drinking her head.  She pushed it back again with her right hand while her left reached for the sky, relying on gravity to drop the cuff to render her hand useful.  She sat in yards of fabric that comprised a skirt that some time ago, someone left in a place that no one remembers.  Its life unknown and forgotten, how it came into the little girl’s possession no one really knows.  She pays no attention to the stains that riddle the ruffles on the more-than-floor-length fabric.  Seated on a barrel of unknown contents; which she imagined was tea, mostly because it was always tea time.  Time for tea!  She would say, mostly when she didn’t have anything to say at all.  The barrel seat was pulled up to an old wooden bench that served as the miniature table top, draped in a blood red cloth that, most likely, she stole from the captain.  Two saucers lay on the table, or what passed as saucers, and the accompanying cups were filled to the brim with imaginary piping hot tea.  Today’s high tea delicacy was a buttery croissant, which in reality was a stale piece of bread.

“It’s time for high tea!” she echoed again.

“No!  I said it’s time for the high sea!” the response shouted down the wooden ladder leading from the belly of the ship to the deck.  “I want to play pirates, now get up here or I be makin’ ye walk the plank” she paused and then added, “matey.”

“Come drink the tea, it’s getting cold. Then we be pirates.”  She paused, took a breath and ended with “arrgh!”

“Always it’s tea, tea, tea.  The first thing we’re gonna do when we’re pirates is dump all the tea in the harbor, mark me words and from now on, call me Black Eyed Jill, harbinger of treasure.  Don’t ask me what harbinger be meanin’ cus I dough’na know, but it be soundin like somethin a pirate would say.”  She jumped from step to step until she landed with a solid thud,  the over-sized boots firmly commanding wooden ground.

“Black Eyed Jill, dough’na be forgettin’ yer napkin on yer lap.  You donna wanna ruin yer best pirating trousers.”

“Arrr, dough’na be tellin’ me how to be livin me life, ya wee lass.  I’ll tar ‘an feather ya faster than ye can be saying leapin’ lizards.”  Black Eyed Jill examined the party setting, looking for a seat.  In the corner she spied it, a short bucket that would put her knees just flush with the table top, but well within reach of her awaiting tea.  “What yer name be, missus?”

“Don’t be puttin’ yer elbows on the table!  We be havin’ manners at this here tea party.  Don’t ever learn you nothin,” she said exasperated as she relieved the now crooked cloth back to its original position.  “Yer better start callin’ me Tricksie Tina, or yer be leaving this tea party with an eye patch and in no friendly manner.”  Her voice trailed off into a hum.

Black Eyed Jill scowled with her good eye across the table at Tricksie Tina, then growled, “Quit that there racket and give me some bread with jam.”

Tricksie Tina slammed her hand down on the table, sticking the dull edge of the butter knife into the table, “Here thar be manners, not every pirate for herself!”  Tricksie Tina relaxed her grip on the butter knife and leaned back onto her seat, adjusted the overwhelming sleeve.  “If’n yer be wantin this here jam smothered in delicious booty of the last pillage, yer gonna have ta be a little more accomordating.”

“Accomordating?? Accomordatin to what?”

“Yer know, payin the homage and all that, like they do to queens.”

“You’re saying yer be wantin presents.”  Jill said flatly.

“I be sayin I be wantin pressies.”  Tina confirmed, even toned as the corners of her lips curled ever so slightly.

“Yer not be getting any pressies from me.”

“Than I be eatin all the jam an’ bread.”

“That’ll be the day.”  Jill challenged.  She raised her body just over the table leaning heavily forward.  “I be sayin’ it’s bout time we be movin the tea party top side.  Give the tea a proper kettle, a kettle for the fishes!”  Jill kicked her seat out from under her and lunged for the invisible tea.  Tina, stunned by the turn of events dropped the butter knife, “NOOOO!  Not me tea!”

“If’n yer not be playin fair I be doin as I darn well please, takin the tea top side.  Besides, we be pirates, and pirates be doin what they know best, pillaging from them who’ve got stuff!”

“Black Eyed Jill, you’ll be double Black Eyed Vermin when I be done with ye,” Tina spat at she lunged to take back her rightful tea.  The two pushed and pulled and emphasizing their might with an arghh and a grrrrrrrrr here and there when the floor boards popped and yelled that a girth of weight had landed, dislodging the simple structure it offered.

They saw his feet, perfect width apart, hands on hips, hat slightly back showing his menacing eyes.  “Oi!  Look lively, or yer be swabbin the decks!  This’n isn’t time fer a kerfufel .  We have some pirating to be doin.  Give yer pops a kiss and get yer arses topside and batten down the hatches.”

Black Eyed Jill helped Tricksie Tina move to the steps in her costume.  They reached their father at the same time and each one took a cheek to don their sweet, loving kiss.  Out of nowhere, as was his wont, his hands appeared holding sprigs of plumb flowers, one in each hand.  “Complements of Captain Black Heart Jim to the prettiest gerls on the entire 7 seas.”